Yule Heibel's Bookmarks tagged cultural_support →  View Popular

The Prime Minister's comments come in the wake of a recently released report from the Conference Board of Canada, in collaboration with the federal government, that confirms high economic returns on cultural investment. The report, entitled Valuing Culture: Measuring and Understanding Canada's Creative Economy, calls the cultural sector's role “as a magnet for talent, an enhancer of economic performance, and a catalyst for prosperity” a universal phenomenon.

The Conference Board estimates Canada's cultural sector generated $46-billion, or 3.8 per cent of Canada's GDP, in 2007. The sector's total impact including “indirect and induced effects” on other sectors leaves an economic footprint of $84.6-billion, or 7.4 per cent of GDP, the report states. Those revelations paint a picture of industry stability: Statistics Canada reported culture accounting for an identical 3.8 per cent of GDP in 2006.

The report put 2003 employment in the cultural sector at 616,000 jobs.

Including direct and indirect contributions to employment, the report estimates that culture accounted for 1.1 million jobs in 2007.

Canada's culture sector is being driven by growth in digital technology and expanding Internet use, the report states.

The culture sector bridges geographical distances and creates greatly expanded social networks.

There are so many other very reasonable access options the ROM has effectively decided against: Free access to the permanent collection. Free access for a day or an evening. Keeping all admission fees at $10 or under. Having concession fees for the underemployed. Admission by donation. The list goes on. Almost every museum in Canada has some combination of these strategies–and has to, in order to keep their funding and their reputation.

By throwing more money at the ROM without keeping them to a truly equitable public mandate, McGuinty is basically encouraging bad behavior in their museum management. Maybe he can abide by that. But I certainly can’t.

Shame there was no mention of museum access in other cities. Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t Toronto the single most expensive city on the planet Earth for visiting the centrepiece museum? Isn’t there something wrong with that? Something that letting a few students in for free will not exactly address? Just as Pearson is the world’s most expensive airport (landing fees), but no one seems to care, there is a surprising tolerance for this gouging.

Cities, TTC, museums, airports - exactly how poor a country is Canada when it comes to government funding of anything other than health care? Think about that while you pay the world’s highest prices (plus GST!) for transit fares, airline tickets, ROM admission….

I agree that TO is not the most expensive city in the world. But the ROM fees are still far from reasonable and fair. This is particularly so for their permanent collection, which are the objects the public in effect owns. That’s why in MTL at the fine arts museum it’s free to see the permanent collection, extra for special exhibitions. Same at the Tate in London.

Also, the Louvre (9 euro daytime admission) has a variety of access strategies that the ROM does not: Discounts every day after 6pm. Free for all the first Sunday of every month. Free for those under 18 all the time. Free for those under 26 on Friday evenings. Free for those with disabilities, and their companions. Free for the unemployed. Free for those on social benefits. And these are obtained right at the gate, no need to get in line for rationed passes.

And the American Museum of Natural History permanent collection access is always by donation. They suggest certain donations, but ultimately all visitors regardless of income, can, yes, see the dinosaurs. Temporary exhibits require payment, as with the Tate and other museums.

A London monthly card for zone 1-2 is 93 pounds but that is also good for rail. A Twin Pass for GO/TTC is no longer available but for a comparable region it would cost far more than $185.

Based on purchasing power (relative to salaries, etc.) I still stand by my statement. Toronto is a bargain when it comes to skating rinks or housing or cost of living in general, but anything civic or infrastructure-related tends to be very, very expensive. To add to my list of “most expensive” — per-km toll highway, commuter train fares, observation decks…(ok, that last one is private and not civic but I still find it annoying.)

Leah is quite correct — all museums in New York that receive any city funding must use pay-what-you-wish admission or lose city funds. A noble principle that should apply to the ROM. MoMA is private and costs $20, but even that museum is free on Friday nights (4-8 pm).

Admission to the ROM, what with all the public funding it receives, should be based on suggested donation, along with possibly an admission ticket required for special exhibitions and the such. This way, let the clueless tourists shell out the suggested admission and everyone else get in for whatever they want to pay.

I am a New Yorker, and one of my favorite things about growing up there was how I could go to the Museum of Natural History and the Metropolitan Museum of Art on the same day for, well, 5 cents each, with a stroll through Central Park thrown in. My high school was a short walk away from the Met, and we would go there to hang out after-school (dorky? yes. awesome? yes)

And as a UofT student, I would love to go to ROM on a regular basis - and now I will be able to. But it would be ultimately better for everyone if that were the case for all of us. Toronto would do well to create a stronger sense of civic pride and belonging, and cultural institutions of course play a huge part in that.

But the ROM does not at all feel like it is a public institution. I remember being annoyed when I heard about how they were having a ’special’ opening for the rich (or whoever) before the ‘official’ opening of the crystal last year - and really, wtf was that? Sure, throw a ball for those that contributed money - but to have it before the public opening just told me that they did not want to have them in there after us common folk contaminated the place.

But really, everything, and I mean everything, in Toronto seems to be more expensive than what I experienced in NYC - and the quality is worse - and there is no reason why it should be that way.

Do working poor people really have time to spend at any museum or gallery? I recall freebie nights at the AGO attracting mostly middle class but cheap Torontonians and some students–most of whom come from middleclass backgrounds.

But yeah, make the ROM free from midnight to six AM!:)

Forget class versus trash, the elite versus the masses.

Divide culture consumers into four new groups, says an international study Oxford University researchers released late last month that will have far-reaching results for arts support everywhere.

"Univores," "Omnivores," "Paucivores" and "Inactives" are the new categories we can all find ourselves in. Which one depends on whether we believe Britney is a huge tabloid star or an area in northwestern France where Impressionist painters spent their summers.

But no matter what group is discussed, the visual arts do not figure very high on anyone's to-do list.

"Omnivores," the next biggest group, includes people who go to the ballet, symphony or opera on occasion while still buying lots of pop culture.

For purposes of the study, cultural consumption was split into three basic categories: theatre, dance and the movies; music of all sorts; and the visual arts.

"We are unable to identify any numerically significant group of cultural consumers whose consumption is essentially confined to high cultural forms and who reject, or at least do not participate in, more popular forms," says the report.

Status counts, not class. And status is defined by income not by culture.

In short, the very idea of "pop culture" is a misnomer.

There is no pop culture. Pop is culture.

Better education does little to change this bleak picture. "There is a sizeable number of people in this group who don't participate" in the elite arts, Goldthorpe says

Why?

"The short answer is, I don't know," says Goldthorpe.

If culture really is a driving force behind the economic development of Montreal, as Premier Jean Charest claimed yesterday, it is about time the city, province and federal government put real money into it.

The news that Montreal's Quartier des spectacles is to receive $120 million from the three levels of government should be applauded.